Ex-vatican Envoy Convicted of Child Sex Abuse

Press TV
June 27, 2014

http://www.presstv.ir/detail/2014/06/27/368892/exvatican-envoy-convicted-of-sex-abuse/

Archbishop Jozef Wesolowski, the Vatican's former ambassador to the Dominican Republic (file photo)

The Vatican’s former ambassador to the Dominican Republic has been defrocked and convicted of child sex abuse by a church tribunal.

The Holy See said Friday that Archbishop Jozef Wesolowski was found guilty by the Vatican's Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith and could no longer perform priestly duties.

Vatican spokesman Federico Lombardi said Wesolowski would also be stripped of his freedom of movement.

The ruling makes Wesolowski the first top papal representative to be convicted of child sex abuse.

The former envoy has two months to appeal. As a papal diplomat and citizen of the Vatican City State, he also faces criminal charges by the tribunal of Vatican City, which could put him behind bars.

Wesolowski had been the Holy See’s ambassador to the Dominican Republic since 2008 when he was recalled last August to the Vatican, amid accusations of sexually abusing a number of children in the slums of Santo Domingo.

The Roman Catholic Church has been hit by numerous scandals in the US and Europe in the past few years, including allegations of covering up the sexual abuse of children by priests to protect pedophiles and its own reputation.

Last month, the United Nations Committee against Torture condemned the Vatican over its handling of sexual abuse of minors by pedophile priests.

In addition, the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child denounced in January the Vatican for adopting policies allowing priests to rape and molest tens of thousands of children. The committee also blasted the Vatican’s practice of transferring the abusing clergymen from parish to parish in a bid to cover up their crimes.